


Unconscious

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Whumptober 2019 [10]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Day 10, Episode: s02e19 Benjamin Franklin + Grey Duffle, Parental Death, Prompt: unconscious, Someone please hug Mac, Whumptober 2019, cancer mentions, childhood angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-02 02:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20970446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: After the car wreck with Julian, Matty is still unconscious, and Mac recalls a painful part of his childhood.





	Unconscious

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [Secret_Library98](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Library98/pseuds/Secret_Library98).

Mac tried sitting still. He tried sitting by the bed and watching the quiet rise and fall of Matty’s chest. He tried not to annoy the hell out of everyone else in the room by being so restless. But he makes it half an hour before he _can’t._

Mac vacates the chair by the head of the bed and paces listlessly in front of the window. It’s not big but he doesn’t have to look at her like this. She’s small in the hospital bed, a bed made for someone so much bigger than her. And it’s not that she’s short, that’s never mattered before. It doesn’t really matter now. It just… reminds him.

Eventually, though, the pacing doesn’t cut it. His fingers tap together and his skin vibrates with the need to do something. The lights hum, the nasal cannula whistles at a frequency that Jack probably can’t hear, and the HVAC system makes the floor vibrate beneath his feet. Frustrated with how intensely agitated he is, Mac stuffs his hands in his pockets.

His Swiss army knife. Grandpa gave it to him after Mom passed. It’s where Mac learned how to channel his energy. It’s made him who he is. But in the palm of his hand all he can think of is how it felt to hold it when he was a kid. It used to be that every time he thought of Mom, Mac would go get his knife and work on something. Later, when he started making things just to make them, it had taken years to stop thinking of her when he picked up the knife. But it’s been over a decade since it’s had this effect.

Mac pauses and looks over at Matty in the bed and grips the knife tighter. Mom had looked small in her hospital bed, too. She wasn’t short, but by the end she was small, so small, her body wasted away by the cancer. He would wait by her bed some days, just waiting for her to come around but she was so weak and tired that sometimes his visits were missed entirely. Mac doesn’t like the comparison at all, but it’s hard to shake.

“Anybody want some coffee?” Mac asks softly.

It’s a stupid question because of course everyone wants coffee; they’ve been working for forty-eight hours straight on two continents, and now they’re sitting vigil at the hospital for someone that they weren’t there to save. Coffee doesn’t fix any of it, but it can smooth over the raw edges for a little while. 

Mac takes everyone’s order — though the only real question is do you want sugar packets and creamer cups — and then escapes the room under the guise of an errand. He’s nearly got the coffees ready when Jack appears next to him, leaning against the counter. 

“Wanna talk about it?” Jack asks knowingly.

“Not really,” Mac answers as he counts creamers.

“Yeah, too bad. I’ve seen how you look at her, like it’s a bad dream. Seeing her like that reminds you of something,” Jack observes.

Mac swallows and starts counting out sugar packets. “Jack-”

“It’s okay, Mac. I’m not gonna make you say it. I get it, though. I remember when my old man got sick, the way he just laid there-”

“Jack, I really don’t want to do this,” Mac interjects. Because he doesn’t. He _can’t,_ just like he can’t sit there and wait. 

“Yeah, okay. That’s fine,” Jack says, finally relenting. 

They carry the coffee back to the room, handing out the cups and the appropriate condiments. While Mac mixes his coffee, Jack ducks out. But it’s not a moment later that he’s back and coming up to Mac with something in his hand.

“Here,” Jack says, nudging Mac’s foot.

Mac’s brow knits up but he holds out his hand for whatever it is Jack’s brought. He smiles and deposits a tangled mess of paperclips in Mac’s hand. 

“I snagged them from the nurses’ station. Figured it might get your mind off things.”

Mac smiles at Jack’s thoughtfulness and is grateful for the distraction. “Thanks, Jack.”

Jack doesn’t say anything, just claps Mac on the shoulder before turning to go back to sit by the bed. Mac fiddles with the tangled mess, combining wires and twisting and turning the pieces until a shape begins to appear from the snarl. Bringing order to the mess in front of him slowly drowns out all the sensations and memories that threaten to overwhelm him. After a while, he gets so focused that he almost doesn’t hear when Jack says, “Welcome back.”

In an instant, the mass of paperclips is forgotten and Mac rushes to the bed with everyone else.

“We missed you boss lady,” Jack says.

Matty blinks and smiles weakly. “Good to see you, too, Jack.”

Mac breathes deep and blinks to clear his eyes. He’d prayed for the moment where Mom would wake up, when her eyes would clear and she would recognize him. He’d held onto that dream for years, even after she died. Having it now is bittersweet relief in a way that Mac can’t begin to name because even as his chest clenches in grief, his heart is bursting with joy.

They talk and Mac asks about taking down Julian, and as Matty tells her story, she doesn’t seem so small anymore and the bed doesn’t seem so big. Matty has always taken up the whole room and that she can do so now reassures Mac even more. 

Matty is fine. It’s all going to be fine.


End file.
